Grabbing the headlines

Rennie Stennett (Associated Press photo)

Willie Stargell collects three hits and drives in three runs, and no one really seems to care.

Richie Hebner drives in another three runs. Yawn.

Same with the normally light-hitting Frank Taveras and his three RBIs.

Dave Parker outdoes all three of his teammates with five RBIs and, again, no one considers him to be the star of this game for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Now, Rennie Stennett, the rising star of a second baseman, well, he is the real headliner for this game 49 years ago today at Chicago’s Wrigley Field.

Wilbert Robinson

All Stennett does is go 7-for-7 at the plate, tying the major league record set in 1892 by Baltimore’s Wilbert Robinson.

Stennett ties another record as he twice gets two hits in the same inning with hits coming in the first and fifth innings.

By the end of the day, Stennett has four singles, two doubles and a triple as the Pirates beat the Cubs 22-0 in the most lopsided shutout since 1900.

The Pirates finish the game with 24 hits, six walks and a sacrifice fly in 61 plate appearances against five Chicago pitchers, the first of whom – the usually quite reliable Rick Reuschel – gives up eight runs on six hits and two walks before he is replaced with one out in the top of the first inning.

Stennett leads off the Pirates’ nine-run first inning with a double to right field and then adds an RBI single to right off Tom Dettore, the Cubs’ next pitcher after Reuschel mercifully is lifted from the game.

Stennett – all of 5-foot-11 and 160 pounds – later leads off the Pirates’ six-run fifth inning with a double to left off Dettore and later in the inning collects a two-run RBI single to right off reliever Oscar Zamora for a 17-0 lead.

Not that many folks see Stennett’s career day as only 4,932 onlookers turn out for the Tuesday afternoon game at Wrigley Field.

More people eventually see Stennett’s bat, which ends up on display at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Stennett finishes the 1975 season batting .286 in 148 games and lasts 11 seasons in the majors before retiring after the 1981 season.

“It’s been more than 30 years now, and I’m surprised nobody’s done it yet,” Stennett tells the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2009. “Your team has to score a lot for you to get up to the plate that many times.”